Political donations up 151% this year, BJP tops list

Satya Electoral Trust donated 14 times to BJP, amounting to a total of Rs 107.25 cr, twice to INC for a total of Rs 18.75 cr and twice to NCP for a total of Rs 6 cr.(REUTERS)

Donations received by political parties in India have risen a whopping 151% this year with BJP topping the list of voluntary contributions.

Data analysed by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) shows that BJP has declared a total of Rs 437.35 crore which is more than twice the aggregate declared by the INC, NCP, CPI and CPM for the same period. However, Sharad Pawar-led NCP registered the largest percentage increase in donations with a 177% rise in donations from Rs 14.02 crore in FY 2013-14 to Rs 38.82 crore in FY14-15.

National political parties in total received Rs 622.38 crore from 1,695 donations in 2014-2015 as compared to Rs 247.77 crore collected in last fiscal.

The Congress Party declared the second highest donations of Rs 141.46 crore from 280 donations, followed by NCP.

Bharti Group’s Satya Electoral Trust was among the top donor

25 percent of the total funds recieved by BJP was donated by the Trust.
(ADR)

BJP received Rs 63.2 crore (14% of total funds received by the party) from General Electoral Trust and Congress received Rs 54.10 crore (38% of total funds received by the party) from the trust. PAN details of the Trust were not available in the report submitted by Congress and only once for its donation of Rs 20 lakhs) in the report filed by BJP.

Donations from corporates formed 94% of total donations declared by BJP

Maharashtra, not Gujarat has contributed the most to political donations

Corporates from Maharashtra donated Rs 246.6 crore while those from Gujarat gave Rs 22.8 crore
(ADR)

ADR reveals that there is ambiguity in details of donations declared by the political parties. For instance, in the column for declaring mode of contribution, the Congress party does not contain the Cheque/DD numbers, for 192 donations amounting to Rs 138.98 crore. This forms 98% of total donations above Rs 20,000 to the party.Similarly, Rs 83.915 lakh was declared as received by BJP from 20 such donors whose PAN details, Address and Mode of contribution (together) were unavailable.